A couple of times in the last week I’ve received a link request from a company offering a keyword research service. They found me because I link to one of their competitors. The thing was, they weren’t asking for a reciprocal link, they were just asking for me to link to them. In return they were offering a 30 day trial of their service.
It’s a superb strategy and it has a double effect.
1. They get quality one-way links
2. More people in the industry find out about their service and hopefully (for them) after 30 days sign up to the paid service.
It doesn’t just work if you provide a subscription service. This model can be applied to retail (percentage discount) or other services (discount on SEO fees for instance). I think we’ll see more and more link requests like this. It’s great for both parties.
